Why the hell do you want to use Wordpress?

Mon 14 Nov 2016
By John Nayler

If I were to present you with a hard cover edition of what was titled "The Alternate Bible" and tell you that it was being read by millions of people right now you would be automatically interested right.

If I were then to tell you that the Alternate Bible was based originally on the collective scribbles of a thousand monkeys and thrown into a paperback novel, your interest would be further pricked - I mean why were millions now reading these scribbles?

There's more - the novel's history includes a twist as the collective wisdom decided that the scribbles, could be revised, tarted up and the "new edition" had some blank pages and missing parts, where anyone could now write you part of the story yourself, but only if you knew where to find the blank pages buried somewhere in the book. Other missing parts of the book are filled by going out and finding them and "plug them in", mindful that these parts might not work, or be incompatible with the rest of the book.

Surely by now, you would be asking, "Hold on that sounds like a mess! It is supposed to be the Alternative Bible, but it is delivered incomplete and you have to source the missing bits?"

There is more though, the original scribble, the parts you go collect and install and bits you add yourself have come together create a new level of complexity. Complexity that is more than complexity, its a puzzle that it requires you to learn a new language to be able to read it, even though its fundamentally in English. So much so that if were to come back in a month's time, you are likely to not remember how to even unlock your "Alternate Bible".

By now you are fed up and demand the answer, "Why would this book be so popular?"

I smile and tell you "there is no reason" and let you know that this is the story of Wordpress. A web-site-blog-engine that was sometime re-invented as the be-all for "Content Management System" (CMS) web site creation. Its comes with bits missing requiring you to find plug-ins, most of which don't work, that you have to install to get it to do something remotely useful.

As a user you need to learn how its management system works, while you find yourself shielded from simple effective HTML/CSS that people can simply learn to grasp real power and flexibility online.

Don't ask me why it's so popular, I can't explain. Since 1998 and the commercialisation of the Internet, I have been writing HTML and programming to make web sites simple, attractive and elegant. Wordpress in my opinion is a steaming bowl of puss. Its slow, bulky, hard to use, inflexible, a target for hacking and the plug-ins rarely work, let along work together.

At eCentral we don't use it and never will. We produce websites that are fast, flexible, on point for the business outcome, changeable instantly and not prey for the hackers. We build on "Bootstrap" templates using a successful formula and edit with Adobe Dreamweaver, the power of which we can put in your hands with a bit of training.

John Nayler is the proprietor of eCentral, producing websites and business outcome since the Internet was in nappies. At eCentral we produce websites and digital marketing for the business outcome and work in person with a select clientele.